Also in question were the ramifications of repealing the law. Would students now — Donnelson said there are 91 —benefiting be grandfathered, or charged out-of-state tuition?

The bill's fiscal impact indicates the state would save $200,000 next fiscal year.

But Ferrin believes those students would not stick around to pay higher tuition. They instead probably would drop out, and all the state's tuition money — and more — would be lost.

"I think it will definitely affect . . . high school students who don't have much hope of going to college in the first place, and most of those students don't have resources of any help other than their parents," Irma Hernandez, a Weber State University sophomore, said in an interview.

The committee never formally debated the bill or took public input, which inevitably would come during interim study.

Ure called the study "the most appropriate thing we can do."

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